IB History Military Strategies Including Guerrilla and Conventional Warfare Notes

Civil War Military Strategies: Mobile Warfare vs. Urban Defence

1. When full-scale civil war resumed in June 1946, the GMD held significant military advantages. It had roughly 3 million troops against the CCP's 1 million.
2. It had an air force and a navy. US-trained and -equipped divisions in the east held the most modern weapons in Chinese history.
3. The GMD controlled all major cities and most railways. By almost any conventional measure, it should have won.
4. Its fatal strategic error was to garrison cities and railway lines rather than control the countryside. GMD forces sat in defensive positions, waiting to be supplied along vulnerable rail corridors.
5. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) surrounded and isolated them, cutting supply routes and using the mobility of a light infantry force moving through terrain the GMD could not monitor.

Huaihai Campaign: The Decisive Battle

1. The Huaihai Campaign (November 1948-January 1949) was the largest land battle in Chinese history and the decisive turning point of the Civil War.
2. Around 600,000 PLA troops under commanders Chen Yi and Liu Bocheng engaged approximately 800,000 GMD soldiers in the flat plains of Jiangsu and Anhui provinces.
3. The PLA used classic encirclement tactics: surrounding GMD field armies, cutting their supply lines, and systematically destroying them when they tried to break out or relieve each other.
4. Jiang Jieshi's micromanagement from Nanjing disrupted his generals' ability to respond flexibly.

1. Entire corps were encircled and trapped.
2. An estimated 5 million peasant labourers contributed to the campaign's logistics, pushing wheelbarrows, carrying ammunition, and transporting the wounded. This mass civilian support reflected the land reform dividend: peasants in liberated areas had a material stake in PLA victory and provided it with a logistical capacity the GMD could not match.
3. By January 1949, an estimated 550,000 GMD troops had been killed, captured, or had defected. The road to the Yangtze River was open.
4. When PLA forces crossed the Yangtze in April 1949 and captured Nanjing, GMD resistance effectively collapsed. Jiang Jieshi fled to Taiwan in December 1949 with approximately 2 million soldiers, officials, and civilians.

Guerrilla and Conventional Warfare: Causation, Limits, and Historical Debate

1. Communist strategy succeeded because it changed as the balance of power changed. Guerrilla and mobile warfare protected weaker forces, while conventional operations became more important once the PLA gained troops, equipment, and secure bases.

1. The GMD initially held larger armies, major cities, and superior weapons. These advantages were weakened by overextended supply lines, uneven morale, and the need to defend fixed positions.
2. Manchuria became crucial because it supplied territory, industry, captured equipment, and access to Soviet-held zones. Control there allowed communist forces to build strength before larger campaigns.
3. The Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin campaigns showed the transition to conventional warfare. Encirclement, concentration of force, and attacks on isolated armies destroyed the GMD's strategic position.
4. Civilian support affected logistics and intelligence, but military outcomes cannot be explained by enthusiasm alone. Command decisions, desertion, transport, and the ability to replace losses were also decisive.
5. The best judgement is dynamic. Maoist guerrilla methods ensured survival and expansion, while victory in 1948 and 1949 required the capacity to fight and win large conventional campaigns.

1. Communist military success cannot be reduced to guerrilla ingenuity or to Guomindang blunders alone: it was the combination of an army that learned to fight conventionally and an opponent whose material superiority never translated into secure territory.